Monday, December 31, 2007

Men and women have the choice as to what they will do with this power within them. Shall they exhaust it in the various self-indulgences, both mental and physical, or shall they use it to become creative in the realms of the spirit and higher mind – a force for good? It is this tremendous choice which every human being has to face.~Vera Stanley Alder

It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom….I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension.~ Freeman Dyson

The ancients did not doubt that men could choose and, through choice, exercise some control over the disposition of their lives. Tacitus, for example…claims that ‘the wisest of the ancients leave us the capacity of choosing our life'.~Mortimer J. Adler

Every situation represents a choice: do we prefer to stay with ego-based patterns of thought and behavior, or do we choose to play life in a higher, more loving way? Will we tread the path of limitation and fear, though that path has grown painful and boring and old, or do we choose to give birth to a higher mode of expression.~Marianne Williamson

The revolution is a movement to bring man's thinking, his society, and his life to terms with the revolution of technology and science that has already taken place. Technology demands of man a new mind - a higher, transcendent reason - if it is to be controlled and guided rather than to become an unthinking monster. It demands a new individual responsibility for values, or it will dictate all values. And it promises a life that is more liberated and more beautiful than any man has known, if man has the courage and the imagination to seize that life. The transformation that is coming invites us to re-examine our own lives. It confronts us with a personal and individual choice: are we satisfied with how we have lived; how would we live differently? It offers us a recovery of self. It faces us with the fact that this choice cannot be evaded, for as the freedom is already there, so must the responsibility be there. At the heart of everything is what we shall call a change of consciousness. This means a "new head" - a new way of living - a new man. ... ~Charles Reich

Because we can choose our inner feelings and thoughts, we have the possibility of self-control and self-direction. This gives us some control over our environment and our world. Our evolution is now self-induced, through our own decisions and efforts. Although the full development of self-consciousness and choice is not yet apparent, we are capable to some extent of choosing what we wish to express and be and what our world will be.~Shirley Nicholson

Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed. Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn’t drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, “It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.” ~Jack Handy

Every cause has its effect; every effect has its cause; everything happens according to Law. Chance is but a name for Law Not Recognized; there are many planes of causation; but nothing escapes the law.~The Kybalion

The wise ones serve on the higher, but rule on the lower. They obey the laws coming from above them, But on their own plane, and those below them they rule and give orders. And, yet, in so doing, they form a part of the Principle, instead of opposing it. The wise man falls in with the Law, and by understanding its movements he operates it instead of being its blind slave. Just as does the skilled swimmer turn this way and that way, going and coming as he will, instead of being as the log which is carried here and there-so is the wise man as compared to the ordinary man-and yet both swimmer and log; wise man and fool, are subject to Law. He who understands this is well on the road to Mastery.~The Kybalion.

To destroy an undesirable rate of mental vibration, put into operation the principle of Polarity and concentrate upon the opposite pole to that which you desire to suppress. Kill out the undesirable by changing its polarity.~The Kybalion

The possession of Knowledge, unless accompanied by a manifestation and expression in Action, is like the hoarding of precious metals-a vain and foolish thing. Knowledge, like wealth, is intended for Use. The Law of Use is Universal, and he who violates it suffers by reason of his conflict with natural forces.~The Kybalion

Saturday, December 1, 2007

The vow of silence, that's the mind-blower. See, talking is what I do... [i] t's a real need with me, a craving, I'm like a word junkie. I never shut up. I talk to myself, I talk in my sleep. The idea of voluntarily turning off that tap, I can't imagine it! It'd be like, I don't know, all the rivers in the world just slammed to a stop. No churning, no flowing, no white water, just stillness, crushing stillness. I don't think I could stand it, locked up like that in my own psyche. I'd collapse into myself, I'd implode!~Northern Exposure

You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act.~Barbara Hall,

God, I don’t have great faith, but I can be faithful. My belief in you may be seasonal, but my faithfulness will not. I will follow in the way of Christ. I will act as though my life and the lives of others matter. I will love. I have no greater gift to offer than my life. Take it.~Real Live Preacher

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

And after death...you will begin to see that your life here is almost nothing but the sum total of every choice you have made during every moment of your life. Your thoughts, which you are responsible for, are as real as your deeds. You will begin to realize that every word and every deed affects your life and also touches thousands of lives.~ Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

We always have a choice. We can let the garden of our life grow wild and unattended until it fills with weeds, or we can take up the proper tools and tend to our garden until we create a place of unimaginable loveliness.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

You feed something every time you think, so you must decide what it will be. Do you want to feed your separation, your alienation? It will increase. Do you want to feed your Wholeness? It, too, will increase. You are the way to Truth and Light. You are the way! Gather up your awareness and place it where you wish it to be and it will stay there, fixed, until you move it again. It’s really up to you.

What is dark clings to what is light and so enhances the brightness of the latter. A luminous thing giving out light must have within itself something that perseveres; otherwise it will in time burn itself out. Everything that gives light is dependent on something to which it clings, in order that it may continue to shine.

Thus the sun and moon cling to heaven, and grain, grass, and trees cling to the earth. So too the twofold clarity of the dedicated man clings to what is right and thereby can shape the world. Human life on earth is conditioned and unfree, and when man recognizes this limitation and makes himself dependent upon the harmonious and beneficent forces of the cosmos, he achieves success.

One need remain in hell no longer than one chooses to; we can rise to any heaven we ourselves choose; and when we choose so to rise, all the higher powers of the Universe combine to help us heavenward.

You can choose to think positive thoughts or negative thoughts. You can choose to feel happy or sad. You can choose to see the positive in a negative situation, or the negative in a positive situation.

We’re here to learn to love more fully, to be God or angels in disguise for one another, to show our love, to show our compassion, to be active in creation. That is the reason and the meaning behind our lives. Each of us has a choice about how to love the world in our unique way.

Joyousness that is weighed is not at peace. After ridding himself of mistakes a man has joy. Often a man finds himself weighing the choice between various kinds of pleasures, and so long as he has not decided which kind he will choose, the higher or the lower, he has no inner peace. Only when he clearly recognizes that passion brings suffering, can he make up his mind to turn away from the lower pleasures and to strive for the higher. Once this decision is sealed, he finds true joy and peace, and inner conflict is overcome.

True joy must spring from within. But if one is empty within and wholly given over to the world, idle pleasures come streaming in from without. This is what many people welcome as diversion. Those who lack inner stability and therefore need amusement, will always find opportunity of indulgence. They attract external pleasures by the emptiness of their natures. Thus they lose themselves more and more, which of course has bad results.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. However, a path without a heart is never enjoyable. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy—it does not make a warrior work at liking it; it makes for a joyful journey; as long as a man follows it, he is one with it.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Choose to be in close proximity to people who are empowering, who appeal to your sense of connection to intention, who see the greatness in you, who feel connected to God, who live a life that gives evidence that Spirit has found celebration through them.

Within each soul is a passion: an inner fire born of love and the intellegence profoundly immersed in the wholeness of creation--therefore, an intelligence burning with compassion. A blessing is this very soulfire made manifest.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed in the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.So throw off the bowlines.Sail away from the safe harbour.Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore...Dream...Discover.

As we explore the extraordinary interplay of energies between the many aspects of our personality -- our needs, unconscious reactions, repressed emotions, aspirations and fears -- with the functioning of our physical system and its capacity to maintain itself, we soon realise how very wise the body is. With its intricately detailed systems and operations it portrays infinite intelligence and compassion, constantly giving us the means to understand ourselves further, to confront issues we are not looking at, and to go beyond that which is holding us back.

If you think you came into being for the purpose of taking an important part in the administration of events, to guard a province of the moral creation from ruin, and that its salvation hangs on the success of your single arm, you have wholly mistaken your business.

All our progress is an unfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end, it shall ripen into truth and you shall know wny you believe...

The world is not the product of manifold power, but of one will, of one mind; and that one mind is everywhere active, in each ray of the star, in each wavelet of the pool; and whatever opposes that will is everywhere balked and baffled, because things are made so, and not otherwise.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Coincidences have never been idle for me, instinctively, but as meaningful as I was to find they were to Jung. I have always had a hunch that they are a manifestation of a law of life of which we are inadequately aware and which in terms of our short life are unfortunately incapable of total definition, and yet however partial the meaning we can extract from them, we ignore it, I believe, at our peril. For as well as promoting some cosmic law, coincidences, I suspect, are some sort of indication to what extent the evolution of our lives is obedient or not obedient to the symmetry of the universe.

Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!"

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

The struggle of the mind to keep itself free from every sort of bondage -- to remain curious, open, unsatiated in all its relations with nature -- is tenfold more difficult than the cultivation of a stable, satisfying point of view, but a thousandfold more precious.

Often we do not know what is really going on. Our perspective can barely accommodate another person’s point of view, no less the forward march of evolution or the eternal mind of God. Better to admit not knowing and to relax in the mystery of life than to try to force our minds where they can’t go.

I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. That is clear. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we all are seeking something better in life. So, I think, the very motion of our life is towards happiness.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Often we do not know what is really going on. Our perspective can barely accommodate another person’s point of view, no less the forward march of evolution or the eternal mind of God. Better to admit not knowing and to relax in the mystery of life than to try to force our minds where they can’t go.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common that unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.

Well, every man has a religion; has something in heaven or earth which he will give up everything else for - something which absorbs him - which may be regarded by others as being useless - yet it is his dream, it is his lodestar, it is his master. That, whatever it is seized upon me, made me its servant, slave - induced me to set aside the other ambitions - a trail of glory in the heavens, which I followed, followed with a full heart... When once I am convinced, I never let go...

You think Nature is some Disney movie? Nature is a killer. Nature is a bitch. It's feeding time out there 24 hours a day, every step that you take is a gamble with death. If it isn't getting hit with lightning today, it's an earthquake tomorrow or some deer tick carrying Lime disease. Either way, you're ending up on the wrong end of the food chain.

Friday, October 19, 2007

Every Warrior of the Light has failed in his spiritual duties. Every Warrior of the Light has said 'yes' when he wanted to say "no". Every Warrior of the Light has hurt someone he loved. That is why he is a Warrior of the Light, because he has been through all this and yet has never lost hope of being better than he is.

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

I teach you the Overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? … The time has come for man to set himself a goal. The time has come to plant the seed to his highest hope.

When you come to the end of everything you know, and the next step is into the depths of darkness of the great unknown, you must believe one of two things: Either you will step out onto firm ground or you will be taught to fly.

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil. Bilbo was meant to find the Ring. In which case, you were also meant to have it. And that is an encouraging thought.

There is one soul.It is related to the world.Art is its action thereon.Science finds its methods.Literature is its record.Religion os the emotion of reverence that it inspires.Ethics is the soul illustrated in human life.Society is the finding of this sould by individuals in each other.Trades are the learning of the soul in nature by labor.Politics is the activity of the soul illustrated in power.Manners are silent and mediate expressions of the soul.

Most people have come to prefer certain of life’s experiences and deny and reject others, unaware of the value of the hidden things that may come wrapped in plain and even ugly paper. In avoiding all pain and seeking comfort at all costs, we may be left without intimacy or compassion; in rejecting change and risk we often cheat ourselves of the quest; in denying our suffering we may never know our strength or our greatness.

Marriage is the union of disparate elements. Male and female. Yin and yang. Proton and electron. What are we talking about here? Nothing less than the very tension that binds the universe. You see, when we look at marriage, people, we're are looking at creation itself.

"I am the sky," says the Hindu bridegroom to the bride. "You are the earth. We are sky and earth united.... You are my husband. You are my wife. My feet shall run because of you. My feet shall dance because of you. My heart shall beat because of you. My eyes see because of you. My mind thinks because of you and I shall love because of you."